


Going Through Changes, Ripping Out Pages

by AetherAria



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: (WE WILL GET THERE...... EVENTUALLY), (uhhhhh sorta), Amnesia, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, Lizard Kissin' Tuesday (Penumbra Podcast), Multi, Second Citadel (Penumbra Podcast)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-13 23:44:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20591096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AetherAria/pseuds/AetherAria
Summary: Lord Arum wakes to discover that some things have changed while he slept. Namely, there is a human in his bed.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuse for this. Why do I keep writing angst???? please send help. Also, just to be on the safe side, this first chapter might potentially hit close to triggering if you're sensitive to depictions of domestic violence, though no actual violence occurs. 
> 
> Title from the song Changes by Langhorne Slim & The Law.

Arum wakes warm.

This is the first sign that something is wrong.

He wakes _warm_, with a strange pressure on his left side pinning two arms against his chest, and something holding down his thigh, and his bed is soft and pliant beneath him, and the last thing Arum remembers is putting his head down in his workshop over some new plans he intends to have the Hermit animate after he rests. Rests only briefly, of course, because the strange minor blight on the Keep is beginning to grow, beginning to worry-

Unfamiliar rhythm. A heartbeat not his own, strange breaths that extend into a sleepy sigh.

Arum snarls, launching himself backward and shoving the weight off of himself, landing on three of his limbs and then scrambling backward until the wall of his bedroom hits his back. The weight - the source of the breaths and heartbeats - tumbles off the other side of the bed with a squawk, taking an unfamiliar thick blanket along for the fall.

“Keep,” Arum snarls, and his knives aren’t in their usual places mounted on the wall. Instead, his claws find drying bundles of flowers and herbs, painted scrolls, thick swathes of fabric. Weapons or no- Arum crouches, claws and teeth and frill bared defensively. “_Keep_, we have been _infiltrated_, seize that creature before it escapes-”

Though- the creature doesn’t seem to be trying particularly hard to make that escape.

“Arum?”

The voice is- soft. Wavering, warbling, half-buried in sleep. The creature the voice belongs to is pushing the blankets aside, and a mostly unclothed _human_ blinks up at Arum from the floor.

“_What_,” Arum snarls, and the Keep sings a soft question of its own.

“Are you alright, my lily?” the human asks gently, and Arum’s mind whites out in sheer confusion as the human rubs an eye and yawns before he pulls himself up, using the bed for support. “You rarely wake so violently,” he murmurs, his eyes trailing over Arum’s hunched form with visible worry.

“_Keep_,” Arum hisses through his teeth. “_Eject_ this creature. What are you _waiting_ for?”

The Keep makes half a noise, pauses, then lilts a strange, uncertain song.

His- _what_? “_What_?” he snarls again, claws flexing in the air as the human continues to stare at him over the expanse of the bed. “I never told you to obey _any_ creature but myself, let alone some-” he sneers, “_human_.”

Aforementioned human blinks again, his brow furrowing and his oddly delicate lips curving down.

“What…” he says, and then he swallows, padding gently around the bed as he changes questions. “What’s wrong, love? You seem-”

Arum blanches, and then he _leaps_, tackling the human and pinning him to - unfortunately - the bed.

“_Love_?” Arum snarls as the human chokes against the hand at his throat. “How _dare_ you-”

"_Arum_," the human manages, looking up at him with worried eyes (not _terrified_ eyes, not eyes full of mortal fear, what is _wrong_ with this creature?), and when he raises his hands it is not to try to pull Arum's claws from his throat. He raises his hands, and he reaches to touch Arum's cheeks, as gentle as-

More gently than anyone has ever touched him before.

Arum snarls again, grabbing his wrists and shoving the hands away, pressing the human's arms against the bed instead.

"I do not know how you _dare_ to presume familiarity with me, little human, but you shall all too soon learn to regret your foolishness," he hisses, low and angry and certain, though the longer he needs to bear that soft, concerned gaze, the less certain Arum feels in fact. "How came you to infiltrate my Keep?"

"Infiltrate?" the human echoes, and Arum resents him the musicality of his voice. "Arum, my lily, what has happened to you? Do you- you are looking at me as if-”

Arum tastes salt on the air, and the human’s breath hitches though he is still not struggling against Arum’s grasp. Arum growls, even more uncomfortable with the new brightness in this human’s keen, earnest eyes.

“You look at me… as if you do not know me.”

Arum hisses, tail lashing, and if this ridiculous creature thinks Arum so unworthy of fear then perhaps Arum should make a _point_. He adjusts his grip on the human’s throat, pressing the tips of his claws against the creature’s fragile pulse. “I have never _seen_ you before,” he snarls, “and since you were mad enough to come to this place and clever enough to bypass my defenses, I cannot abide letting you _live_. Foolishness so great has consequences, human-”

Vines curl around Arum’s midsection, his wrists, and the Keep pulls him up and away from the human with a yelp.

“Ahh- Keep?” the human queries, still with obvious tears in his eyes, and Arum snarls again because _how does he know_-

The Keep chastises Arum, stern and concerned, and Arum writhes against the vines, snapping his teeth in the air. “Let me _down_ you traitorous-”

The Keep ignores him, and opens a portal showing an unfamiliar space, a room full of glass bottles and books and bowls of herbs and strange-smelling viscous liquids, and the Keep sings an instruction that the human- the human seems to _understand_. At least somewhat.

“No,” he responds, slashing an insistent hand through the air. “No, I’m not going to simply leave when something is so terribly _wrong_ with him! Keep, please, we have to discover what has happened so we may fix it.”

The Keep sings again, a little more insistent itself, a little more derisive, and the human’s expression falls open.

“Oh. _Oh_, of _course_. Rilla! Keep, you- you are _brilliant_, thank you dear creature, oh- she _must_ know what to do, if _anyone_ does it must be her, oh _Rilla_-”

And the human bolts, still babbling to himself, through the portal, and then the Keep closes it pointedly behind him.

“Keep,” Arum growls low, “you will put me _down_ now, or I-”

He doesn’t need to finish the threat. The Keep sets him gently back to his feet, vines lingering in a comforting way on his arms and shoulders for a brief moment before Arum bats them away.

“What is _wrong_ with you, you traitorous bundle of bark? Has your infection grown so dire that you cannot tell companion from intruder? Have you decided to be done with me and grow a new familiar entirely, and you thought some bumbling human assassin was the best way to achieve your goals?”

The Keep sings something like a sigh, and Arum can _feel_ the worry billowing from his counterpart, the love that feels- much more vivid than it has, as of late. And- and Arum can feel that what the Keep is telling him is… _correct_.

The Keep is no longer sick. The illness, the blight- it is nowhere to be found.

Arum sags, his relief at this realization almost enough to overcome his sheer bewilderment at everything else this morning has entailed.

“How? How are you well again? Is- is this confusion the price paid for lifting some subtle curse? What _happened_?”

The Keep sings, and Arum pulls his head back with a scoff.

“I do not have a _mate_,” he snarls, “let alone-”

The Keep interrupts, reaching with gentle vines again, and Arum is too confused to push them away this time.

“How… how long?” Arum asks, and when the Keep responds he shakes his head, snapping his teeth together. “You are _confused_, Keep. It cannot be-”

The Keep pushes him lightly, sings something so pointed he can hear it echo in his own head.

_Look around you. Change has come, welcome and warm. Denial will not serve you today_.

Arum growls, but- his own bedroom is not how he knows it.

The shape of the room itself is different. It is bigger, the walls expanded by a few feet, and on those walls where his collection of knives _should_ be are decorations, tapestries with hand painted lines of verse or botanical sketches, bundles of drying flowers, fragrant herbs, all with lines of bioluminescence carefully woven around them like frames. His bed is grown larger as well, and it is covered with new blankets and cushions, all of which bear the scent- the scent of the soft-voiced human, and another besides.

He flicks his tongue in the air, creeping close enough to touch the new softness in the place he sleeps. His own scent, mingling with the undeniable presence of orange peel and leather, of ink, of mint and some other unplaceable herbs, of _humans_, and Arum does not _understand_.

Nearly a year since the Keep was ill. That is what it said.

He crosses his arms uncomfortably over his own chest, and even that feels odd, and when he looks down he realizes that the claws on his lower two hands are dulled, filed down carefully soft. He stares, discomfort crawling up his spine, and the Keep murmurs gentle around him.

Nearly a year.

Arum frowns, curling all four hands into fists. It seems he has some catching up to do.

“Keep. You will tell me _everything_. And then you will bring me to this _human_, and I will have every answer you cannot provide.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is Rilla's turn to have her morning unpleasantly interrupted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope ya didn't think I'd forgotten about this one!! (I do not forget anything tbh. I just have about fifty back burners I keep shoving stuff onto.) Enjoy??? or something. not much happens and no one is particularly happy, but. y'know. I love you! Happy LKT!
> 
> Chapter specific content warning for very mild injury and a little bit of blood.

Rilla wakes to the sound of the portal open in her front room, and the familiar singing and the sound of creaking vines and wood invite a smile as she rolls over in bed, stretching her toes and rolling her shoulders as she slowly comes awake.

She can hear Damien’s voice. Not his words, not quite, but-

Hm. He sounds- he sounds like he’s arguing? But Rilla doesn’t hear Arum’s voice, just the Keep, and-

Her name. She picks that out easily enough. She smiles wryly, stretching again before she sits up, pushing the tangle of her hair out of her face as she hears Damien’s voice increase in volume, as she hears the portal creak back closed and her poet clatter through her front room.

“Morning, Damien,” she starts before he’s even opened her bedroom door, but the second she sees him she sits up straight in alarm. He is still in sleep clothes, which isn’t entirely unheard of when he comes directly from the Keep, considering that Rilla has plenty of his clothes lying around her own hut too, but the much more pressing matter is the blood. His neck is bleeding- not _badly_, but there are two small cuts just below his jaw, the blood forking together into a small red rivulet running down towards the hollow at the base of his throat, and his expression is wracked, twisted in distress.

“Rilla something _terrible_ has happened, some curse or injury or blight and I don’t know what to-”

“Whoa, Damien, slow down!” She slips from the bed, toes cold on the floor as her hands move on automatic, grabbing up her medical bag and snatching out a clean cloth. She dabs away the red, gently cleans the area, but before she’s entirely finished Damien reaches up and touches the trail of wetness with a look of utter incomprehension on his face.

“He-” Damien looks at the blood on his fingertips, wide-eyed and lost. “He… he _cut_ me?” he says, voice gone faint, and then the brightness in his eyes spills over and Rilla has two whole armfuls of knight, shaking through with tears. “Oh Saint Damien please protect us, oh Rilla, my Rilla he- oh I don’t _understand_-”

“What- Damien, shhh, I’ve got you, it’s gonna be _okay_, but you have to tell me-”

“Might never- never be- _okay_, never _himself_ again, my Rilla, oh my love-” Rilla manages to pick out between wracking sobs, and then Damien lifts his face enough that she can see the wild misery twisting his expression, the confusion.

“What _happened_?”

“I don’t- I don’t _know_,” Damien moans, shaking his head. “Arum- I do not know what has befallen him, I only know that when he woke- when he woke he- he pushed me away and he- he was frightened and he did not- he- he did not-”

“Breathe, Damien, you can’t explain if you aren’t breathing- slow down and _breathe_.”

He sucks in a sharp breath, and then another, and the third comes at least a little bit slower.

“He did not _know_ me, my love,” Damien keens, and then the sharpness in his breath is back again and his body is shaking in her arms.

“What- wait. What does that mean? He-”

“He has _forgotten_ us, he did not recognize me, he- called me _intruder_ and _assassin_ and he- he leapt upon me and-” Damien interrupts himself with a sob, and his next words are so broken between gasping breaths that Rilla almost can’t understand them. “And if the Keep h-had not intervened I do not know what he w-would have _done_-”

“Arum- Arum attacked you?”

“He did not _know_ me, Rilla, he- he looked at me like a stranger and, and he had completely _forgotten_-”

“He doesn’t… remember?” Rilla’s mind races, already digging for explanations, for clues. “But- but the Keep stopped him from hurting you.”

“Yes, it- clever creature, it pulled him away and- and opened the way here.”

“So the _Keep_ remembers,” Rilla says, brow furrowing. “So whatever this is… it’s just on Arum. Not on… hm. That’s… _strange_, but it will probably make it easier to talk to him, at least.”

“Easier to…” Damien trails off.

“If he’s got some sort of amnesia - and I have to assume it would be magically sourced, of course, unless he’s suffered a head injury lately and just _neglected_ to mention it - he’s not going to believe this, not any of it. You know how _stubborn_ he is, and you know how- how long it took him to be completely comfortable being vulnerable with us. If the Keep didn’t remember us too- I doubt we’d ever be able to get close enough to him to figure any of this out.”

Damien makes a choking noise, and Rilla blinks back to the moment and pulls Damien closer, shushing gentle into his hair.

“_But_,” she says. “But the Keep _does_ remember. It kept him from hurting you and it brought you _here_, so it _has_ to remember, right?”

“R-right,” Damien says, a little weakly. “It certainly seemed to- it seemed- _confused_ as well, from what little I can glean of its intent.”

“Which means that it can tell Arum who we are, and that we’re not lying.” She pauses, choosing not to mention aloud that she isn’t entirely sure that Arum will actually take the Keep at its word, that he’ll believe a single note of it anyway. That’s not really a helpful thought, and it’ll only make Damien more upset. “It can back us up. He’s gonna be more likely to believe his _mom_ than a couple of- of humans.”

They hold each other, for a long moment. The only noise that passes between them is the soft rustle of cloth and Damien’s sharp, unsteady breathing, until Rilla sighs and leans back.

“Rilla I… I am _terrified_,” Damien keens quietly, squeezing her hand.

“Yeah,” Rilla agrees. “I’m not exactly feeling overwhelmed with confidence myself. But- but we love him, and we know he loves us. We’ll- we’ll figure it out, Damien. We’ll figure out what happened and we’ll _fix_ it.”

Damien bites his lip, exhales, nods. “Somehow,” he murmurs. “Somehow, we will.”

She hugs him tighter for another moment, then steps away, keeping one hand clasped with his. “C’mon. Let me bandage that up, and then we’ll start gathering evidence.”

“Evidence?” Damien stammers as Rilla sits him on the bed and grabs her medical bag again.

“_Evidence_,” she repeats with relish as she dabs away the remaining blood drying on his neck. “We’ve been with him for nearly a _year_, Damien, and we’ve been careful for the _obvious_ reasons, but it’s not like we haven’t made a noticeable impact on each other’s lives. Like- I’m sure he’s freaking out over there about his bedroom and all the other stuff that’s changed. There’s stuff _here_ that’s changed, too. Hell, if we need to bring in _other_ humans that know him now, we can do that, but he’ll probably feel less threatened if it’s just us-”

“What kind of evidence?”

Rilla purses her lips, carefully bandaging him before she stands straight again, tapping her knuckles lightly on her chin. “My recorder for one, I know I’ve got him commenting on things at least a few times, we’ve got that comfort log the pair of us made for you a while back, too, and I know he’s sketched notes in the margins of some of my books even after I told him _not to_, which- I mean, he’d recognize his own handwriting, right?”

Damien blinks, feeling a little overwhelmed. “Y-yes, yes I suppose- that all… well, that is something physical, something hard to deny-”

“Not that I’m saying the more ephemeral stuff won’t be helpful too,” Rilla says, turning to pace in a tight circle as Damien watches. “I mean, just the fact that we’re so comfortable with him- even you, letting him get close enough- I’m sure that- well, I know he’s got the denial game on _lock_ but still, a human sleeping next to him? That’s gotta count for something, I think, some fuel to the fire, at least, and I bet- how did you respond, when he came at you?”

She turns her gaze on Damien again, and her eyes are- a little manic. “I did not… I did not fight back, if that is what you are asking, my love,” he says, and then he stands, reaching a hand out to try to gently caress her shoulder. She steps away again before he can manage the contact, though, pacing quick again in the small space. “Rilla, are you-”

“That’s what I thought,” she says, her lip curling into something like a grin. “Which- I mean, again, the _denial_, I’m sure he could fool himself into thinking that was part of the ploy, or maybe that you’re just _stupid_ or something, but you trust him so much that you won't even lift a hand to defend yourself when he could _kill_ you, it's not like that's good _tactics_ or something if this were a trick, it's just you _trusting_ him and loving him and not wanting to hurt-”

“Rilla. Rilla, my flower _slow down_, take a breath-”

Rilla stops pacing, turning her head to look at him again, and blinking as if coming back to herself. She swallows, clenches her hands, and laughs, a little uncomfortably.

“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, okay, you’re probably right. I shouldn’t- I shouldn’t get ahead of myself.” She reaches out, then, taking Damien’s hand and squeezing. “Okay. Let’s… let’s grab a couple recordings and see if the Keep will- and see if the _lizard Lord_ is up for a couple visitors.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The humans return to the Keep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> boy do i cry. merry happy lizard kissmas tuesday!!!

The Keep opens the portal for them, its tone gentle and, perhaps, a little nervous, and when Rilla and Damien step through (now dressed at least somewhat properly, less vulnerable out of sleep clothes), they are in a space that makes Rilla immediately burst into a breath of laughter, even as it pulls on her heart. A constructed room in the darkness, with a puddle of bioluminescence illuminating Arum, draped upon his throne of thorns and vines. Just as he had been, the first time she woke up here, kidnapped and confused. He curls lazily on the floral seat, one leg slung over the side and his tail twining slowly in the air and his chin resting on a hand. He gazes down on them with glittering, angry eyes, his body radiating an indulgent patience that Rilla instantly recognizes as an act.

_Oh, Arum_, she thinks, and the hand she has clasped with Damien’s squeezes for a moment, and she feels him shift closer to her in response. He can see it too, she thinks. They know him too well, they know this veneer because they know what hides underneath it, too.

“Hello, humans,” Arum hisses, his eyes darting between them as his tongue flicks in the air. “My Keep informs me that we are… already acquainted. It is mistaken, of course, but I suppose I should congratulate you on piquing my curiosity with this little infiltration and play-act.”

“I can’t believe you had the Keep pull out the _throne_ for this,” Rilla mutters, mostly because she can’t help herself, and Damien makes a choking noise beside her as Arum freezes, his tail going still in the air.

Arum hisses more deliberately, then, a thin rattle emanating from his throat.

“What, precisely, do you _want_?” he bites out, and-

Saints, she hasn’t seen him look so angry and defensive and scared since… since the Hermit.

“To help you,” Damien says softly beside her, and she glances towards him, seeing the hope and the pain on his face. “We want to help you discover what has happened to you, so we may work together to fix this, to help you remember.”

“_Fix_ this,” Arum echoes, his voice going low and mocking.

“Yeah,” Rilla says. “Obviously. If you don’t remember us at all that means you lost… what, nearly a year? It’s coming up on the Festival of the Three again, so it’s gotta be, right?”

Arum’s growl pitches lower. “That is… my understanding of the time lost. That is correct.”

“And Keep, you don’t… have any idea what this is? Why it’s only affecting him and not you too? Not that I’m complaining about you not getting hit with it, I mean.”

Arum’s lip curls into a sneer, shoulders hunching as she addresses the structure, and the Keep sings a sighing warble that Arum does not deign to translate, though Rilla gets enough of the gist even without. Nerves and confusion and hesitant affection- it doesn’t know why this is happening, and it is _not_ happy about it. Rilla feels pretty much the same.

“Don’t do that,” Arum says, voice flat.

Rilla tilts her head. “Don’t-”

“Speak to my Keep. At all, preferably, but certainly not in _that_ tone.”

“What _tone_, Arum?” she says, raising an eyebrow.

“Do not act so _familiar_ with it, human. I do not _care_ what my Keep says you are, to me or _otherwise_, but you will not speak with it in such a way. Your influence will be rooted out soon enough, I will not abide your attempts to bolster it.”

“Okay, well, that’s ridiculous for too many reasons to even get into,” Rilla says with half a laugh, and then she shakes her head. “Look, why did you let us through at all if you didn’t want to actually have a discussion about this? If you were just going to, I don’t know, _kill us_, you wouldn’t have gone through with the whole dramatic throne thing. You were trying to _intimidate_ us at worst, and honestly I don’t know what you expected to get out of _that_.”

“Rilla,” Damien says gently, “is that- helpful?”

The growl returns, perhaps a little louder, and Arum’s tail flicks irritably. “Why should you care about her helpfulness, little human? If I am honest, I am surprised to see _you_ again at _all_. I thought I had been rather _clear_ in my stance upon your presence here, considering those bandages around your neck.”

Damien reaches a hand up automatically, fingertips just barely brushing the clean white. “An accident,” he says, very quietly, “when the Keep pulled you away. I do not know if you would have done so otherwise.”

Arum stares at him, lip curing unpleasantly. “Naive little thing, aren’t you?”

“He really isn’t,” Rilla says. “Back to my question, though. You didn’t let us come here just so you could insult us. What, exactly, is the point of this?”

Arum exhales, a long slow hiss. “My Keep has informed me of the events, as it _believes_ they occurred. As it has been made to think they did. There are… _gaps_, however, in its knowledge. I do not _trust_ either of you to fill those gaps, but it does not seem as if I have a _choice_, in who I may ask. _You_, little humans, will not be going _anywhere_ until this situation has been dealt with.”

Rilla raises an eyebrow and Damien gives a strange little laugh. “Funny you should say that, Arum.”

“You do not have a _choice_, humans. You want so badly to interfere? Fine. You are not leaving this place.”

“Yeah,” Rilla says. “Damien and I were going to say the same thing, actually. We’re not going anywhere until we fix this.”

“That-” Arum breaks off, blinking, and then he growls. “No. No, _you_ do not get to decide-”

“I don’t even know what you’re angry about, Arum,” she says, shrugging. “We agree. That’s a good thing. Deal with it.”

He growls louder for a moment, then hisses out a slow, steadying breath. “Very well. Keep, retract the walls."

The Keep obeys quickly, the greenhouse revealing itself around them in gentle, familiar greens and browns and purples, and Arum looks confused by the way the two humans relax, slightly, at the comfort of his home.

"I hope you shall be as _cooperative_ in answering my questions, then," Arum hisses, trying to claw back any measure of control over this conversation, "or this will quickly become… unpleasant.”

“Okay, fun threat. Totally buy that,” Rilla says, frowning and giving him a wry look before she shakes her head. “Well, go on then, Arum. Whatever questions you have… ask them and we’ll do our best to answer.”

Arum pulls a face, apparently irritated further by her easy acquiescence, and then he adjusts himself on the throne, straightening very slightly. “Very well. You, _Damien_.” He glares down, and Damien looks vaguely pained at the dripping disdain in the way Arum spits his name, but he gestures for the monster to continue. “We _dueled_, I understand. More than once.”

“Y… yes, indeed we did.” He pauses, but Arum does not elaborate his question. Rilla squeezes Damien’s hand, just lightly, and he gives a shaky sort of exhale before he continues, pulling his explanation back to the skeletal plot, because he does not think Arum will appreciate it if Damien drags this out with more detail and emotion than strictly necessary. “You- you infiltrated the Queen’s chambers, while I was on duty as guard. We fought, and it became clear that my bow against your knives could only end in a stalemate. We dueled instead, each of us with one of your knives, and eventually… eventually I bested you. I cut your arm.”

Arum frowns, but he does not look altogether surprised by this. His hand twitches, as if it might raise to touch the offending scar, but he stifles the motion. “Yes. And?”

“And- and it so happened that I could not bring myself to kill you, m- Arum.” He pauses again, his jaw going tight as he composes himself. “I did not _want_ to. I… I did not understand why, at the time. I abstracted it into the unfairness of our match, and I gave you a scarf with which to wrap your injury, and demanded another turn with you, a rematch, but- but with the benefit of hindsight I know now that it was as simple as this: I did not wish to kill you. You surprised me, and I was fascinated by the complexity I saw within you, even from so short a time together.”

Arum ducks his head, the growl still rumbling through him, and then he flicks his eyes to Rilla. “And you say he is _not_ naive,” he mutters.

“He’s not,” Rilla repeats.

“I allowed you to leave the Citadel, with my Queen’s own headscarf wrapped like a bandage around your arm,” Damien continues. “And then in our second duel, you bested _me_. But just as I spared you, you returned the gesture. You cut my arm, but you did not kill me.” Damien does lift his own hand, then, pushing his sleeve up enough to brush his fingers over his own scar, smiling in a sad, fond sort of way. “You cut me, but just as quickly you tore your cape to bind my wound.”

“I- I would not _tear my cape_ for some _human_-”

Damien’s fond smile goes a little watery, a little weak, and after a moment of clear hesitation he reaches down, slipping a hand into a small satchel at his belt. “I… I could not bear to… to part with it.” He laughs, a little strangely. “Even if you remembered I believe you would call me sentimental, my lily,” he murmurs, low enough that Arum thinks he was not meant to hear, and then Damien pulls the scrap of purple out, his fingers brushing the fabric so lovingly for a brief, charged moment. There is brightness in his eyes again, wild and mournful, and he needs to brush a hand over his eyes after he tucks the fabric away.

“So-” Arum scoffs, looks away. “So we _tied_.”

“Yes.”

“And I do not imagine it ended _there_. If you were to let a monster-”

“Yes,” Damien interrupts, looking pained. “Precisely. We set a time for a third duel, but it did not occur as intended.”

“Because you got distracted,” Rilla says, quirking an eyebrow up at him. “Kidnapping _me_, because I stumbled on some grubs you’d been prototyping for your contract with the Senate.”

Arum flinches, his shoulders hunching further as his frill flares defensively. “You-”

“You didn’t tell me that right away, obviously. I found out about it later. I just knew they were weird grubs that almost killed me and Marc, and you needed to know how much I figured out about them. And when it turned out I hadn’t had time to do more than basically just _look_ at them, you figured you could put me to better use.” She points to her own chest. “Herbalist.” She grins, and points up, in the vague direction of the Keep. “Big ol’ plant, that happened to be _ill_. You needed help, and eventually, after just- a _lot_ of arguments and mistakes and friction, we figured it out. Barely, _barely_ in time, but we did. We saved your Keep.”

“_We_,” he mutters, sounding sulky more than disbelieving, and Rilla grins a bit more aggressively.

“Yeah, we. _Together_. I doubt either of us would have figured it out in time on our own, but together- turns out, when we actually stop arguing, we work pretty damn well together, Arum.”

Arum looks more unsettled by this particular claim than any that came before. “You understand, of course, that this is all _ridiculous_ and I don’t trust a single word of it.”

Rilla’s grin fades, somewhat, and she sighs. “Yeah, I mean, laid out like that of _course_ it sounds wild, and we haven’t even _gotten_ to some of the crazier bits. But a lot of true things sound completely nuts, Arum, so maybe you should look at the evidence.”

“Evidence,” he repeats, snide.

“The _evidence_. The Keep knows us- and _we_ know the _Keep_. Your room looks different, I’m positive it does, and I’m sure we’ve changed other things in here too. We _know you_. You haven’t shared _everything_ with us, probably, and there’s plenty we haven’t asked about, to like- respect your privacy, but we know what’s important to loving you.”

“You do not _know_ me,” the monster growls, and Rilla tries to bury her hurt in frustration.

“You repeating things like that won’t make them true, Arum,” she says, a little bit of growl in her voice as well, and she ignores the warning way that Damien squeezes her hand. “We know that you like tea a lot more than coffee, but you’ll drink either one if they get put in front of you before you’re really awake. We know that your frill flares higher when you’re embarrassed than when you’re angry, and if you’re scared it’ll press really flat against your neck. We know that the oldest pair of knives in your collection is from some old Keep-Lord named Konjak, though you haven’t really told us anything about them except that their journals are a particular pain in the ass to decode. We know that you mutter in your sleep, and that you make your own mead with the hives on the higher parts of the Keep, and we know that you look kinda ill for about a week before you shed but you look completely fucking _gorgeous_ right after-”

“We know that you purr, when you kiss us,” Damien adds gently.

Arum chokes on a breath. “_Kiss_ you,” he repeats in a snarl. “I don’t know how you expect I should believe an idea so impossible and _foul_ in the same moment.”

Damien flinches, exhaling sharp as his eyes go bright, and Rilla tries to squeeze his hand in as soothing a way as she can manage, considering the vivid stab of anger that she’s trying to bite down at the same moment.

“Yes,” Damien says, his voice gone halfway to keening. “When we kiss. You- you purr, nearly every time.”

“I do not _purr_, little human.”

“Okay, well, if you’re gonna just _lie_ we aren’t going to get much of anywhere, Arum,” Rilla says sharply. “Who do you even think you’re pretending for?”

“You are on a the edge of a blade, _Rilla_,” Arum snarls, and Rilla- Rilla discovers that she can’t _stand_ that name in his voice. “If you continue to _mock_ me, I will forgo the rest of the _interrogation_ and have my Keep kill the both of y-”

The Keep does not allow him to finish the sentence. It warbles out a denial even the humans can understand, and then it sings something else, something too complex to follow, and Arum hisses, curling into a tighter ball on his throne. He turns his head aside, then, and scoffs with his frill flaring.

“Ridiculous. The very idea of it- you are concerned with the _wrong_ party in this debacle, Keep, and you will understand that soon enough. I will _make_ you understand,” he mutters, “you ungrateful, traitorous, moronic-”

“Hey, don’t-” Rilla grits her teeth. “The Keep is probably just as thrown off by all this as you are.”

Arum narrows his eyes at her again, rattling low in his throat. “It is _not_ your place to concern yourself for my Keep’s _feelings_, human.”

“Well, _somebody_ has to, Arum-”

“Love,” the knight says softly, and Rilla clenches her jaw harder for a moment before she sighs. “We understand that this is difficult, for you. It- to be perfectly honest, Lord Arum, it hurts to see you in such a state.”

Arum blinks, scoffs again. “It hurts _you-_”

“We have been through great pains,” Damien pushes, his expression tight, “to become as comfortable together as we are-” he pauses, shudders out a breath, and corrects. “As we _were_. Our relationship was hard-won, Arum.”

Arum laughs, a short sort of sound, and then he stands from the throne at last, glaring down his snout at the pair of them and taking a threatening step closer. “_Why_. Why would you fight to be close to a _monster_, little knight? Am I meant to understand that you take _pleasure_ in betraying your kind?”

“Our relationship was hard-won,” Damien repeats, and his voice goes high and broken when he continues, “and it has been worth every- every single pain.”

Arum stares, for a long moment, as Rilla lets go of Damien’s hand so she can put her arm around his shoulder instead, as the knight bites his lip and pushes the force of his emotion (his affected emotion, certainly, his little play-act at heartbreak) back down to something manageable. When they look up to him again, Arum remembers to breathe, and he pulls that breath into a scoff.

“And- and am I supposed to believe that I feel affection for _you_, of anyone? All you ever do is writhe and whine. How soft, precisely, do you think I have _gone_?” Arum says with a sneer, and Sir Damien flinches, his face freezing in obvious pain, and Arum feels something twist in his stomach-

But none of this can be _real_. It cannot. The sooner he can prompt these fools into betraying this ruse, the sooner he and the Keep can go back to how things were.

“Pardon- pardon me,” the knight gasps, pulling himself from Rilla’s grasp and pressing a hand over his mouth, and then he bolts from the room.

Arum clenches his jaw. Guilt is pointless, and he certainly doesn’t feel it about something as trivial as-

Rilla slaps him. It is loud, not hard, though he is surprised enough that the slap turns his face away from her, and he loses his breath in a surprised _ha_.

He growls, then, turning back towards her with narrowed eyes and a palm cupped over the place where she struck with her overly warm little hand. “How _dare_-”

“I know that you’re having a hard time right now, Arum,” she interrupts, and her voice is low and dark and dangerous. “But that gives you _no_ right to speak to him like that. We’re trying to _help_ you, and the least you could do is just be _civil_, or at least not poke him where you _know_ it will hurt. The _least_ you could do is not try to make him even _more_ miserable when he’s already missing you and worrying about you, when he’s already hurt and scared and hopeless and- and-”

The danger has receded from her voice, somewhat, and Arum is almost more terrified by the strange thickness that has replaced it. Even more so, since the tears in this human’s eyes have done _nothing_ to decrease the furious fire in them as well.

“Quite-” he huffs out a breath, uncertain, and looks away from her for a moment. “Quite a _show_ the both of you put on. Remarkably convincing emotional displays, despite the impossibility of your claims.”

Rilla glares hard. He can feel the force of it even though he is still not looking at her directly.

“You’re scared,” she says. Her tone is dry, factual, and he ducks his head with a growl as he turns to face her again.

“_Absurd_,” he snarls. “Of _what_, precisely? That the soft little knight will- will _cry_ on me, perhaps? That you will _doctor_ me to death?”

“You’re scared of the idea of caring about us,” she says, her dark eyes darting between his own, her brow furrowed. “You’ve been so alone, for _so_ _long_, and the idea of caring about us and us caring about _you_ is terrifying. It would mean that we would be close enough to actually hurt you if we wanted, and you don’t know how to admit that sort of vulnerability. And of _course_ you don’t, because the way your life was before, it would have been just- _so_ dangerous. You had to protect the Keep- that was your duty, and your whole reason for existing. But Arum-” she sighs, and the churning panic in his mind redoubles at the _understanding_ in her eyes. “You’re allowed to live for yourself, too. The Keep wants you to be happy and safe as much as you want the same for it. And- and we do _too_. We love you, Arum, _and_ we love the Keep. Loving you and loving the Keep go hand in hand.”

“S-stop,” he snarls. “Stop saying that.”

“Saying-”

“I demand that you _stop_.”

“Stop saying that I love you?” Rilla says gently, and Arum growls low, snapping his teeth together in a threat.

“_Yes_. I have had _enough_ of that particular fable for the day, little human.”

“Why?”

“It is _impossible_, it is _nonsense_, stop _saying_ it because you could not possibly mean it, and I refuse to entertain your mockery for another moment-”

“Arum-”

“_Lord_ Arum.”

“Arum,” she says more firmly. “Are you upset because you think it’s a lie, or are you upset because you hope that it _isn’t_?”

“I will not entertain these insults a single moment longer,” Arum says in a breathless rush. “Keep I am- I am _finished_ with this mad creature. The humans may _not_ leave, not until I discover how they _did_ this to me, but I need not listen to this drivel. My workshop. _Now_.”

The Keep trills something short and dry, and Rilla - damn her - _laughs_.

“I- you are _my Keep_, I need not put flowers upon my words for you, you spoiled- you _know my thoughts_, is it really necessary to- is this _your_ doing?” he snarls at the human.

“Getting the Keep used to basic politeness?” She laughs again, and it jumps in Arum’s stomach. “I mean, it was a group effort, really.”

Arum snarls again, then rolls his eyes. “_Fine_. Keep, a portal to my workshop, _please_. If you could be _ever so kind_,” he drawls, and then Rilla rolls her eyes too.

“Running away isn’t going to fix any of this. It’s not going to make Damien and I disappear. You know that.”

He does.

He folds his arms over his chest, turning away from her entirely. “I do not know how you tricked my Keep. Not yet. But I _will_. And when I do, all of this mockery and play-acting will _cease_.”

“Mockery, insults,” Rilla frowns, and Arum hates the curve of it, the way her nose wrinkles, just slightly. “You seem really damn convinced that we’d only show you affection as some sort of trick. Why is it so hard for you to believe that we want to be around you? That we like you? That we lo-”

“I told you to _stop_ that!” He turns from the portal to round on her instead, crowding into her space though does not flinch, and even when he is nearly nose to nose with her she does not back away a single inch. “It is _hard for me to believe_ because it is _impossible_. I am a monster. _He_ is a knight. You are a _doctor_, who has likely seen countless horrible consequences of violence between our peoples. It is _ridiculous_ to think that you would look past that, would look past the works of my hands to pretend to feel even the smallest breath of affection for me. You, _apparently_, are aware of what I have been hired to do for the Senate. No human could forgive- you cannot _possibly-_ cannot possibly feel that sort of warmth towards me.”

“You kidnapped me, too,” Rilla says with a half smile.

“_And_ I kidnapped you. Yes. The Keep told me _all_ about your kidnapping. All about how I was apparently coerced into sending you away with the Moonlit Hermit-”

“_Coerced_,” Amaryllis scoffs, unimpressed. “Oh, _please_.”

“I cannot imagine how _else_ such a thing would have happened.”

“You… you just kind of gave it to me,” Amaryllis says, and he flinches at her tone. Because- she no longer sounds as if she is trying to convince him of something, or as if she is indulging him, or being _patient_. She sounds… soft. Uncertain. “Never really explained why,” she says, not looking at him anymore, laughing very lightly. “And I never… I never asked you. I guess I should have. I just- didn’t think that I’d- I didn’t think I had a clock over my head to get the answer to that little mystery.”

Arum stares at her. “Stop that,” he says again, more quietly, and she blinks back to herself, blinks back to observing him.

“Stop… what?”

“That _look_. Stop it.” He growls at the confused way her brow furrows. “Stop looking so- so _injured_ about it.”

“I don’t know, Arum, I’m _feeling_ a little injured right now. My monster doesn’t recognize me and my compartmentalization around that fact is starting to break down a bit.” She grins, wide but weak, and Arum’s fingers twitch. “Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable, but- that’s just how it is. Maybe you’re right, maybe we’re not making any progress right now and it’s just gonna get- more and more uncomfortable.” She sighs. “You should- you should go to your workshop and cool down a bit.”

“I don’t need your _permission_-”

“I know. But I have to go find Damien anyway. I’d rather not leave you alone, but at least I know you’ll have the Keep, and I know that it’s easier for you to calm down when you’re working on a project. Just- please, please Arum- don’t shut us out. We can fix this. I _know_ we can.” Her hands move, then, and he can _see_ the way she almost reaches for him, and this creature-

She must be a _remarkable_ actress. The flicker of pain in her eyes is- is incredibly convincing.

He turns decidedly away from her, slithering to the portal, but when he reaches the threshold he cannot help but glance over his shoulder again. He cannot help but look.

She looks… smaller. Her posture stiff, her shoulders sagging, one hand fisted in front of her mouth as if she’s holding something back, words or tears or a shout, and her dark eyes are shining.

Whatever strange magic they work on him, he cannot trust it. Arum turns away from her, and he retreats.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two conversations, and a little investigation.

Damien isn't far, when Rilla finds him again. He’s standing out in the hall near the kitchen, and-

And the Keep has wrapped steady vines around his shoulders, clinging lightly and blooming in soft yellows and blues. Damien has his eyes closed, his expression motionless but tense, his lips tight together as Rilla comes close.

"Damien," she says gently. He probably hears her coming, but she knows how deeply he can get caught up in his own head. He sighs at her voice, clinging to the Keep's vines in turn, but he doesn't open his eyes just yet. "Are you-"

She doesn't quite finish the thought. _Are you alright_? Stupid question, obviously. Neither of them are. _None_ of them. Damien's lip pulls to the side, a weak sort of grimace, and she steps closer. The Keep makes room, shifting some vines to brush her shoulders as well, a gentle curtain around the both of them as she pulls Damien into a tight hug.

"Rilla," he murmurs. He presses his face into her neck, inhaling sharply and holding her in return. "I… I am sorry I left in such a state. It was- I should not have-I shouldn't have faltered. I couldn't-"

"It's _okay_, Damien. I know. He- he was being cruel on _ purpose _ but you _ know _ he doesn't really think that. He couldn't have known it would hurt you like-"

"I know," Damien murmurs, drooping further to rest his forehead against her shoulder. "Of course he doesn't know that those particular cruelties would affect me. A rather cold comfort, I'm afraid, considering that his lack of knowledge is entirely the issue."

Rilla sighs, because obviously Damien is right. The fact that he _could_ hurt them like that by accident- it almost stings worse than if the cut were deliberate. "I sent him to cool off in his workshop," she says softly, and Damien's lip curls into something wry, something that isn't quite a smile.

"I'm sure he was quite amenable to instruction, hm?" he drawls.

Rilla bites back a bitter laugh. "Obviously. I-" she pauses. "I don't know what to do now," she says, only recognizing the feeling as she voices it. "Shit."

It's Damien's turn to tighten his arms, holding her more securely with a quiet, sympathetic noise. The Keep shifts around both of them, humming low and brushing soft leaves over their shoulders, and Rilla looks up, raising an eyebrow.

"What, do _ you _ have an idea?" she asks, and she has less than zero clue how the Keep could _ answer _ her in a way she can understand, but- "I'm not willing to rule out _ anything _ at this point."

The Keep pauses, and then it sings, unsure but hopeful, and pulls open a portal.

Damien and Rilla meet each other's eyes, concern and hope and doubt and pain passing quick and quiet between them, and then Damien takes a steadying breath, takes Rilla's hand, and they both step through.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Arum steps into his workshop, the portal disappears behind him, and then he simply closes his eyes and clenches his hands and _ breathes_, until he begins to feel less panicked, less uncertain.

He is too agitated to realize, for quite a few minutes, that he should have been much less agreeable to allowing the little knight to bolt off into his Keep unsupervised, and that _ doctor _ as well. When he barks out an irritated question regarding their whereabouts, however, the Keep calmly informs him that the herbalist has just now found the knight, that they are currently in a corridor near the kitchen, simply- talking.

_ Plotting_, he thinks darkly, and then he scowls.

"If you _ say _ so," he mutters, and then after a long moment he sighs. "If they will be remaining here until this little mystery is unraveled… well. See that their biological needs are met, at least. Wouldn't do to have them _ starving _ before I entirely understand their part in this."

The Keep hums lightly, pointedly, and Arum growls.

"I do not _ care _ what sorts of meals they prefer."

The Keep hums again.

"No, I do _ not_."

The Keep says nothing for a moment, and then it gives a very, very gentle trill.

"Well I do not _ currently_, then!" he snarls, throwing two hands in the air emphatically. "What have they _ done_? What did they do to pull you to their side above _ mine_? Are we not two parts of the same _ whole_? I _ exist _ to protect you- you are my _ sole reason _ for existing- why should _ either _ of us care about a pair of interloping _ humans_?"

The Keep pauses, and then sings one short, gentle phrase.

Arum's frill presses tight to his neck, and then he attempts to scoff, folding his arms over his chest in a way that feels unfortunately uncertain.

"... ridiculous," he breathes. "Why should that matter? And- and it is _ absurd _ to suggest that they would have enough of a grip on me to effect- to make me- _ ridiculous_."

It sings again, the same short phrase.

"I am-" he snaps his teeth together. "I am _ already_-" he hisses low, feeling his tail thrashing uncomfortably. "It does not _ matter_. What is the _ value _ of happiness, Keep? In what way does it serve to ensure your safety?"

The Keep does not sing in response, this time, but Arum can _ feel _ the sorrow that pulses through it in its silence.

"See?" he says after a moment, his voice stilted. "You can provide no answer to that, can you? Ridiculous. All of this is _ absurd_. The only thing that matters- the _ only _ thing that matters is our survival. These humans are nothing but a threat to that."

The Keep remains silent, and Arum can feel that it is pulling its attention back, retreating from the conversation.

Arum attempts to consider this a victory. Arum resists the impulse to call the Keep's attention back. Arum pretends that the idea of being left entirely alone at this moment does not fill him with-

It does not matter. He sighs, turning his body away, ending the conversation on his own terms, despite the fact that the Keep surrounds him, despite the fact that the Keep chose to fade from attention first.

At last Arum brings his focus to his surroundings, observing his workshop, and he narrows his eyes in confusion as he does.

The experiments he has been working on are _gone_. Every one of them has disappeared from the space, replaced by newer creatures and tools that he does not recognize. Not only that, but the space- it has been widened slightly as his bedroom was, grown outward to accommodate wider workspaces, more tools.

Arum narrows his eyes even further, realizing that this space, as it currently exists, is meant to have room for _ two_.

Some of the projects appear to be the ordinary fare, new traps and creatures with modifications to help protect themselves and the swamp, but beside them appear to be experiments of decidedly _medical_ intent, and others besides _those_ he cannot seem to determine a reason for in the least. They are magical in nature, of course, but he can see little else from which to glean their purpose.

There is a third pair of fireproof gloves beside his own set of four, now. Slimmer, smaller, carefully stitched. He stares at them for a long moment, an uncomfortable ticking in his throat.

Everything is out of place. _Everything_.

… He would not even have noticed the scraps of torn parchment shoved unceremoniously into the fireplace, if the colorful splash of the wax seal did not catch his eye. Catch his eye, and then stick there.

Even torn in half, Arum knows the seal of the Senate by sight.

It takes perhaps a half an hour to pull together enough of the scraps that he can reconstruct the letter, at least to the point where it is mostly legible, and his hands are utterly ruined with ash by the time he achieves his goal.

Some is still fragmented. If there were a greeting or a signature they have burned or been torn away, and though Arum can see frequent scatterings of words like _Universe_ and _Will_ and bits and pieces of aggressive posturing, the one paragraph he has managed to restore is edifying enough that he does not feel the need to continue scrabbling through the hearth.

_It is the Will of the Universe that the monster collective does as it pleases. The Senate does our utmost to uphold this Will, and it is to our pleasure that the human infection be eradicated. By failing to destroy a growing number of humans - chief among them a healer of their kind, and a monster-killer - you defy the Will of the Senate, and by extension the Will of the Universe itself. You are going destroy them. The Senate assures you, Lord Arum, that it will be your Will to do so. A monster may only defy its nature for so long, and the human infection will destroy you, if you do not destroy your own small infection first._

Arum can see the holes on either side of the parchment, where his own claws must have dug in before he tore the page entirely asunder. His own claws fit neatly in those spaces, and part of him wishes to tear it all asunder yet again, if only for the letter's smug, self-important tone.

_Evidence_, he thinks vaguely, and the word comes in the little human's confident voice. Mention of a healer and a monster-killer, the doctor and the knight- the letter shredded and half-burned in the hearth- barely legible even after wasting half an hour in the effort-

If this is part of some enormous lie… it would be a nearly impossibly elaborate one.

Arum looks at the small pair of gloves again. He smooths over the torn edges of the letter from the Senate.

The growth within his greenhouse corroborates the timeline the Keep and the humans claim, the year he has lost. A year of making room in his home for these creatures. A year of dulling the sharpness of his claws, a year of experiments he no longer knows, a year of, apparently, deceiving and defying the Senate.

_You are going to destroy them_.

Arum feels his frill shiver at his neck.

_it will be your Will to do so. _

Arum's mind churns, confusion and frustration and fear, and he digs his claw into the wax of the Senate's seal. Their words certainly sound like the threat of a curse, to Arum's ears. And if it truly was the Senate who stole a year from him-

(The memory is gone. Utter blankness. Did he truly, honestly risk the safety of his Keep? Did he truly dig his heels in to earn the Senate's ire?)

He needs to speak with the humans again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a moment to breathe together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy LKT! it's finally not death-grip hot today. i hope you're doing well <3

The Keep brings the pair of them to a familiar room, though not one that they would have expected. There are a lot of spaces in the Keep that don't have particular _ functions_, exactly, since Arum isn't keen on categorization or organization, but this room he and Rilla have mostly taken to calling the study. It has a few books (far fewer than the scroll room), a couple soft seats (fewer than the dining room) and a window shaded by a thin, wide-leafed curtain of vines, and as they enter, the Keep drops another set of vines, lifting Rilla's instrument from beside the window and pressing it into her hands.

Rilla stares down, and Damien watches her swallow roughly as her hand wraps around the neck. It's a homemade thing, the same instrument that she engineered during her first stay within these walls, though it has been structurally bolstered and restrung and better tuned and painted with playful florals since that time. Rilla laughs, and it sounds nearly hollow, and the Keep's vines press the instrument more firmly into her grip.

"Keep," she says, her tone uncertain and worried, and the Keep warbles an urgent set of tones, pushing the instrument again before it releases it into her hands. "I'm… I'm not sure if-"

The Keep sings, then. Sings in _words_, the first line of a familiar song, and Rilla clutches the neck of the instrument tight enough that one of the strings makes a tight high noise against her fingernail.

"Oh," Damien says, catching the Keep's meaning, and it is so strange, he thinks, that such a sound can fill him with such warm memory and such sadness at the same moment. "Oh," he repeats breathlessly. "I see. You believe that he might… if he hears- you think the familiarity of the song, the association between it and _ us_-"

"No. No, that's not going to _work_," Rilla says firmly, her eyes upturned vaguely in the direction of the Keep.

Damien sighs as the Keep exhales a wilted sort of song, but he can't deny that he agrees with his flower. Rilla winces, though, raising a hand to pat at the air consolingly.

"I mean- Keep, it's a really sweet idea, and the theory that he'll remember the song-" her voice goes strange and wobbly for a moment, and then she inhales and continues, "the theory that it would help him remember isn't without merit. Music has a lot of connection to memory, between repeated patterns of things like rhyme and rhythm and leitmotifs- but- but I don't think he's gonna take it very well if we try to like, perform a little three-creature concert for him, y'know?"

The Keep sings again, tentative but hopeful, and Rilla sighs.

"He'll think we're trying to manipulate him," she says quietly. "Technically, we _ would _ be. And- and he won't buy it if he can tell I'm not fully into it. I'm an _awful_ liar- he can _ always _ tell if I'm putting on a face, and- and honestly? I just-" she folds her arms over her chest, looking down and to the side. "I just … I really don't _ feel _ like singing, right now."

Damien's heart pulls, caught in the tide of Rilla's ill-hidden sorrow. For its part, the Keep sings again, an understanding descent of notes, an obvious concession to Rilla's points.

"Why don't you play, just a little, my love?" Damien's keeps his voice low, and he brushes his hand over hers on the neck of her instrument. "And I will do the singing myself."

"Damien," she says, sounding tired and uncertain. "It isn't going to w-"

"Not," he clarifies, "for the sake of a solution, I mean. Simply for us. You have sung for my own comfort more times than I could possibly count. If it would bring you more distress, you need not play, but at least let me sing for you. Our Keep has made a lovely suggestion, and I should like, I think, to take some small measure of comfort where I can, and share it."

"Oh," Rilla says, blinking, and then she breathes a weak sort of laugh. "Oh, I mean… if you- if you want?"

Damien smiles, and it feels mostly genuine. They still have not come to any solutions, but surprising Rilla is delightful enough to warm him regardless. "I believe you are correct," he says, "that any attempts at artifice will only cause our lily to mistrust our intentions further. Perhaps we should attempt to show him your recordings, next. That seems an appropriate step. But currently, while he is… cooling off, as you put it, I think we should take a moment of our own. Settle our minds, comfort our souls." He squeezes her hand, ducking his head. "Will you let me sing for you?"

"Damien," she says, and her cheeks are dark as her lips tilt into a fond smile. She glances down to her instrument, and then she sighs, and sits, and lifts it to a proper playing position as she meets Damien's eyes again. "I'll play. You can sing, if you really want to. But- but you don't have to sing _ for _ me, okay?"

"I know," he says, settling to sit beside her as her fingers dance across the frets, lazily adjusting the tuning. "But surely you know that I _ want _ to."

Her smile grows, and she plucks out a few unconnected chords. "Alright, alright," she says, voice warm, and then she bites her lip for a moment as her fingers move, as she strums through a few more experimental notes before she decides on something he can sing along with.

Another folk song, one without quite such a fraught connection to the four of them, this time. A song about warm rains and bolting for shelter, about closeness and laughter, about staying together in the hidden places, even after the storm passes by.

She is always so beautiful when she plays. She _ laughs_, even, when the Keep begins to hum wordlessly along with Damien, and he nearly loses his thread when the combination of her talent and her joy threatens to overwhelm his heart. Eventually, on the final verse, she lets her own voice raise to join theirs, harmonizing until she strums the last chord.

Her smile tilts her lips, and her eyes sparkle between rueful and mischievous.

"Tactical _ and _ romantic," she murmurs, and Damien attempts to look innocent. "Okay, okay, I'm actually feeling a little better now. Happy?"

At the admission, Damien's shoulders relax, and he cannot help his own smile. "Absolutely delighted, my flower," he says, and then he leans closer, and Rilla breathes another small laugh as she lifts one hand away from the frets to cup his cheek, to pull him more decisively into the kiss.

Damien freezes when he hears the sharp inhale from the doorway, and he can feel the too-small reserves of comfort and warmth shrink within him. He can feel Rilla's frame stiffen beneath his hands as well, and he forces himself to pull back, to glance aside, to look where he knows he will see-

Arum leans on the doorframe, two hands clinging to the wood, his thin lips parted and his expression confused and open and raw. A moment after Damien looks towards him, though, he snaps his jaw shut again, forcing himself to look nearly blank.

Nearly. Damien knows him too well to be entirely fooled.

"How- how long were you-"

Rilla cuts herself off before she finishes the question, and Arum looks away with a throaty rumble, his tail flicking behind him.

"Long enough to know you were including my _ Keep _ in your little moment of _ bonding_, which I do not appreciate in the-"

Arum cuts himself off as well, and Damien wonders for a strange moment if this is a very convoluted attempt at mocking, but the lizard's mouth twists into an uncomfortable line as he visibly struggles through some decision, his hands clenching and unclenching from tense fists as the rattle in his throat grows again.

Arum inhales, glances back behind himself for a moment, and then he seems to shake whatever thoughts he had been grappling, and he narrows his eyes at Rilla.

"You," he says, and Damien can _ see _ the way he is layering suspicion over his confusion now. "Rilla. You mentioned the _ Senate_, when discussing how you claim we first came to… to know one another. What do you know of them?"

Rilla bites her lip, confused over this sudden return to interrogation. She furrows her brow as she meets Damien's eye for a moment, and he gives the shadow of a shrug, exactly as unsure about the monster's intent as Rilla herself is.

"Uh, only what you've told me?" she tilts her head, setting her instrument gingerly to the side of their seat and then crossing her arms over her chest as she thinks. "Which honestly isn't all that much. I don't think you really like talking about them? And as far as I know they haven't been much of a factor since the mess at Fort Terminus. They kinda-sorta run the show with the monsters in general, yeah? Mostly because they're powerful enough to just… do what _ they _ want, even if it infringes on what _ other _ monsters want."

Arum frowns, but despite his clear displeasure he nods. "That is not entirely inaccurate." He pauses, tension in his jaw before he continues, "and you are certain that I am… no longer in communication, then, with these beasts?"

Rilla's eyebrows shoot up, and Damien answers, "You have certainly not mentioned any correspondence, no. May I ask why this is a concern, currently?"

"Do you think they're involved?" Rilla asks, eager, and Arum's snout wrinkles.

"I cannot say for certain," he mutters, and then he bares his teeth uncomfortably, "and if I do not discuss them with _ you_, I do not know how I could find out."

Damien turns that phrasing over in his head, and he is sure that he must have misheard for a moment, because he seems to be implying-

"Wait." Rilla shifts at his side, sitting straighter. "Wait. You're talking like- do you believe us?"

Arum stares at her for a moment, brow furrowed, and then he blinks quickly, hissing sharp and low.

Damien watches him hunch his shoulders, duck his head, hands flexing, and Damien does not know if his heart should swell or plummet. Arum did not even realize his own implication.

"I-" the monster stammers. "That is not-" he shakes his head, his frill fluttering with distress. "I do _ not_-"

Damien stands, and Rilla stands a moment after, her hand at his elbow.

"Arum," Damien tries, and the monster snaps his jaw shut, glaring between the both of them for a long moment.

"… I do not know _ what _ to believe," he says slowly, eventually, and then he drops his eyes. "So … so perhaps you should continue attempting to prove your point. If- if you are so terribly certain that you are correct, if you believe you have some so-called _ evidence _ that may be so utterly compelling…" he trails off, exhales a slow sigh, and then gestures with a hand, prompting the Keep to form a doorway at his back. "I may have found some evidence of my own. Come. Convince me, and perhaps I will show you what I've found."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are some tried and true methods, when it comes to curse-breaking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter beat me up out by the dumpsters. but hey! happy LKT! ;3c

Arum brings them to his workshop. Rilla isn't sure if she should be more relieved or worried about that, but the fact that the room looks _ turned over _ is leaning her more towards the second option.

"Okay," she says slowly as he leans against one of the worktables (his own, she notes) and stares at the both of them with an edge of suspicion. "You want us to convince you. How exactly can we do that?"

"What will it take for you to believe us?" Damien echoes, his voice a little uneven.

Arum wrinkles his snout, but he doesn't quite look _ angry_, now. Mostly he just looks uncomfortable.

He reaches and lifts one of her recorders from on top of a small pile of blueprints, scrawled over in his handwriting as well Rilla's, and he frowns lightly as he fiddles with the controls until he plays the entry he's apparently interested in.

_ Research log, Entry 4485. We're going to need to adjust the dosage slightly on the treatment regimen we've worked out for the Keep. Its reaction has been positive, and it certainly seems like we're making strides helping it recover from the long-term damage sustained from the Moonlit Hermit incident, but it's experiencing some side effects and I think we can work out a better ratio that should prevent the added drowsiness and pseudo-cramping while still helping to restore its structural awareness and reduce the internal scarring. I think our best bet is- _

Arum stops the recording, still frowning, and then he meets Rilla's eyes.

"I _ thought _ you said that we _ solved _ the illness afflicting my Keep," he mutters, though he still doesn't sound angry.

"We did," she clarifies. "But by the time we _ did _ solve it, the Keep had been suffering from sleep deprivation - you had too, by the way - and a magically modified fungal infection so bad that it was nearly _ necrotic _ for something like two weeks at least. We figured out the problem, but that doesn't mean that the Keep didn't take some long-term damage in the meantime. And even after that-" she laughs, helplessly, "after that, the fear monster set the entire swamp off, so it's not like the poor thing got a _ break _ before you and Marc and it had to struggle through a full-blown _ assault_."

"Marc," Arum hisses, looking away. "The Keep mentioned another… hrm."

"Is this… does this have any particular bearing on our current situation?" Damien asks, his tone very careful, and Arum sighs.

"The pieces of this obnoxious puzzle seem to be falling into place," he says slowly, grudgingly. "And the pieces seem to… corroborate a certain version of the events of the last year."

"A certain version?" Damien echoes, his hands clasping in front of his chest.

Arum sighs again, his snout wrinkling before he looks up towards them. "_Your _ version. Which-" he waves a hand in front of himself when Rilla and Damien glance towards each other in surprise. "Do not misunderstand. Your _ story _ is still ridiculous, and I still do not _ understand_, and everything you have so far claimed is decidedly in the realm of the _ impossible_. But-" he grimaces, and then he reaches for the recorder again. "But I am… I am more aware than most," he grumbles, "that the impossible is perfectly within reach. For me, at the least."

He presses down the button, and a different entry plays. Rilla doesn't remember exactly when this one is from (she records her logs so thoroughly so she doesn't _ need _ to keep that information in her head, honestly), but she can hear from the very first word that she's completely exhausted in the recording.

_ -ter version of the salve. The last three trials have completely tanked, and until I can get my hands on some mo- _

She interrupts herself, the edges of a wide yawn crackling through on the tape.

-_ more, Saints. More of that specific subspecies of dayshade, which is a pain in the ass to source, I'm limited in the number of trials I can actually do. I've got maybe enough for__… four more attempts? So I need to pick just four formulas to try and just hope that one of them- _

A rustle and a gasp, and then Arum's low rumbling laughter on the recording.

_ Sneaking up on me again, Arum- _

_ I do not think I could have approached you in any other way, Amaryllis. You have apparently been utterly single-minded on this task since sundown. You_ _… you aren't avoiding sleep again, are you? _

_ No. No, I just- lost track of the time. Is it actually that late? _

_ If you go to sleep right now, you might just pass Damien as he wakes. _

A laugh, Rilla's own this time, and then another rustle that ends in a soft hum.

_ So what are you doing awake, then? _

_ Looking for you, of course. _

Another laugh, bright and warm, and Arum looks away from the device with his frill flared high.

_ Arum- _

_ Come to bed, little doctor. It is_ _… it is never quite warm enough without you. _

_ Alright, okay, okay you big- oh. Whoops. Experiment will continue tomorrow, I guess? End of log. _

Arum clicks the button, preventing the device from playing the following log, and then he swallows and frowns even more deeply before he meets Rilla's eyes again.

"Evidence," he hisses. "Everywhere I look, every stone I turn. The pair of you have sunk your roots in here, however you've done it, and… and I know my own voice. I know- I can recognize-"

He snaps his teeth together, and then he exhales a hiss between them.

"I do not understand _ how_. But the pair of you are apparently a part of this. Part of the life that this-" he pats his own chest, his lower hands with the dulled claws thumping off of his scales, "_this _ version of myself has built, over the year that has been stolen from me. I cannot… I cannot imagine that the both of you are… are such impeccable liars as would be required for this to be…" he clenches his teeth, eyes flicking back and forth as he searches for the words.

"Arum," Damien murmurs, and the monster's frown eases, just barely.

"I am beginning to think," Arum says slowly, "that this curse was meant to harm you, just as much as it was meant to harm _ me_."

Rilla can't help the relief, can't help the way her shoulders sag, and Damien clings to her arm. Arum watches them both, but- he doesn't seem surprised by their reaction.

"If- if that was the intent," Damien says breathlessly, "I think it is safe to say it quite succeeded."

"Hm," Arum says, and it sounds a little bit like an agreement.

Rilla, for her part, is running back through exactly what Arum just said, because-

"Wait. You said- curse?"

Arum's frill settles, and he turns, jerking his shoulder to motion the pair of them closer.

"You said before that you do not believe I have had any correspondence with the monster Senate since… since almost the time that I can remember currently. I've found some evidence to the contrary. Look."

He gestures, and Rilla looks past him to see the carefully reconstructed remains of the letter.

She steps closer, and Arum rattles uncomfortably as she and Damien read through what they can. Damien's breath goes sharp, and Rilla needs to read it three times, because she's almost too angry to internalize the words on the first two tries.

"_You are going to destroy them_," Damien echoes, his horror completely clear in his tone. "They thought- they wanted _you_ to kill us. They thought that you would-"

"I nearly did," Arum murmurs, his tail flicking irritably. "They certainly wanted me to. Or, failing that, they believed that one of _ you _ would kill _ me_. I find myself far less favorable towards that first idea now that I know I was being _ manipulated _ into it. I am the puppet of _ no _ creature, no matter how much of my mind has been scraped away."

"So you think-" Rilla cuts off, the anger flaring again. "So they _ cursed _ you. That's what you think this is?"

"That would not be unheard of, for a punishment laid down by the Senate," he murmurs, looking away.

"This… this is because of _ us_, then," Damien says quietly, blankly. "It is _ our _ fault, that they have done this to you."

Rilla jerks her head to the side to look at Damien, biting his lip and pressing a hand over his heart in obvious despair, and she opens her mouth to deny it, but Arum gets there first.

"I would say, little knight, that if the Senate did this to me, it is _ their _ fault." He growls lightly, tapping his claws off the table beside the remains of the letter. "Besides, did we not just agree that this was meant to harm you as well? Now that we have at least _ some _ hint as to what has caused this debacle, we can begin to take steps towards reversing it."

"You have an idea, then?"

"I have several," he grumbles, and then his chest puffs up as he stands a bit straighter. "I have broken curses _ before_. I will break this one as well," he says. "Keep. The scroll room."

The Keep obeys without a _ please _ this time, and as the portal is forming beside the monster he turns to Rilla again.

"If you and I… perform _ research _ together, as is apparent from… the majority of this room, and from your notes as well as my own… I will allow you to assist me."

Rilla snorts a laugh, and then she takes Damien's hand. "I'm not your assistant," she says quickly as they step past him through the portal. "And you aren't mine either," she clarifies when his expression goes sour behind them. "C'mon. Just show me which journals we're starting with and we'll compare notes in an hour."

* * *

Damien helps for a while, mostly just fetching books and running to the kitchen to grab water and a small meal for the three of them, and then assisting whenever Rilla asks, but she's not entirely surprised when she glances over to ask him to grab one of Vetch's older journals and she finds him completely passed out in the chair beside her own.

She manages a smile. This is the calmest she's seen him look all day.

Arum doesn't mention it, but he works more quietly after that. She pretends not to notice when she catches him staring at Damien in his sleep.

Eventually, she leans back in her seat with a long sigh, pushing her hair out of her face. They've hit on a few different curse-breaking methods that seem to come up repeatedly- one that Arum says he's used before is pretty straightforward, but unlikely to be useful to them in this case: killing the creature who created the curse. _ Usually_, he says, that will solve the issue immediately, but there _ is _ a slim chance that it'll just leave the curse behind, depending on how it was created. Besides that, though, the chances of the four of them figuring out _ which _ member of the Senate created this curse and then actually getting close enough to kill them- well, it's a risky idea at the very least. Probably impossible, if she's being honest with herself.

Another potential solution that keeps coming up in Rilla's research is- well. Mostly it's just more fuel for the fire of Rilla's distaste for the way magic works. It sounds more like a bad joke than a real solution, but it does keep coming up, and… well…

"Do kisses actually break curses?" Rilla asks eventually, quietly, and she feels absolutely stupid, but she's been with Arum for long enough to know that if this question has a real answer, he would know it. "Or is that just another dumb misinterpretation-slash-mistranslation of some herbal component or something?"

"They-" he pauses, flicks his tongue, and his expression goes distinctly uncomfortable. "They have been known to. Historically. Though- though the magic is, of course-"

"Inconsistent," Rilla finishes with a frustrated sigh. "I know, I know. But-"

"It would not be… unheard of," he mumbles, looking decidedly away from her. "If… if a- a _ powerful _ sort of- of connection were involved."

Rilla grits her teeth, resisting the urge to groan. "So. _ True _ love."

"Ugh," the monster grumbles, and Rilla can't help but agree.

"Look, I _ know _ it's stupid, but so is _ magic _ and if there's even a possibility it might work-"

"Magic is not _ stupid_," he spits, and her human insult sounds charmingly ridiculous in his voice. Like it always does. She tries not to think about that.

"Just inconsistent and almost _ deliberately _ contrary," she says, and then she glances towards Damien's still sleeping-slumped form and lowers her voice. "I just- I know it's a long shot. I know you barely believe us. I know it'll be-" _ painful_, she doesn't say. "Awkward. But- if it _ works_, then it's just a few seconds of- awkward and then you'll have the whole damn year back, right?"

"So you would like to… kiss." He pauses, his hands flexing and clenching. "To _ kiss _ me. That is what you are saying."

"I'm not saying I would _ like _ to," she corrects quickly, because the idea of Arum not knowing, not recognizing, not _ remembering _ while she puts her lips on him makes her feel- it makes her chest feel tight and awful and she thinks that she might want to just scream a bit, but- "I'm saying there's a slim, _ slim _ chance that it might just fix this, and I think it'd be stupid of us not to just test that incredibly low-risk theory and see what happens, if anything. And if it doesn't work-"

He stares at her, his frown turning nearly into a pout as she tries not to think about the curiosity in his eyes.

"If it doesn't work?"

"Then we…" she sighs. "Then we just keep looking for something else. No great loss beyond a couple of seconds of time."

That part feels like a lie. Rilla- Rilla always wants to kiss Arum. She _ loves _ kissing Arum, loves the way she can make him smile, make his whole frame soften so damn easily-

It feels like a pretty fucking substantial loss, though, to give a kiss to Arum while he barely even knows who she _ is_.

But if there's even the _ slightest _ chance it might bring him back- Saints, she's starting to sound like Damien. She sucks in a breath to steady herself, then presses her own lips into a frown as she waits for Arum to respond.

His hands flex again, and then he seems to remember the coded journal in danger of his claws, and he sets the tome aside as a thin rattle whirs from his throat. He meets her eye- and then he glances away too quickly, snake-strike fast.

Rilla saw, though. She saw the look in his eyes. He's already made the decision.

"… very well," he says eventually, still not looking anywhere near her. "If… if you believe we might unravel this magic… if we _are_ to each other what you say we are… that sort of magic is rather old, and rather… _ potent_. I imagine this curse must be powerful, but…"

"You agree that there's a chance?"

"Slim," he hedges. "With magic, there is a chance of nearly _ anything_. With magic as old as a curse-breaking _ kiss_… a slim chance is still a chance, I suppose."

"Okay," Rilla says slowly. "So… so you're okay if we… try this?"

"I'm not going to get my hopes up," the monster mutters, and then he flicks his eyes up to meet her own. "But… yes. If there is a chance… yes."

Rilla clenches her fists hard at her side, trying and trying and _ trying _ not to think about the mingling hope and curiosity she can see the monster trying very clumsily to hide.

"Alright," she says, and then she takes another step closer to him. "Okay. If you're sure-"

"I'm not going to say it _ again_, little human."

"I'm just gonna," she says by way of warning, and then before her hands can start actually shaking, she lifts them to cup his jaw, her heart stuttering when he stiffens at the contact. He swallows, his eyes widening as they flick between her own, and she gives a weak sort of smile. "Close your eyes?"

She's half expecting him to change his mind at that. Instead, he just watches her for another moment, his hands flexing at his sides, and then she feels him nod very slightly as he lets his eyes slip closed.

She could almost pretend, like this. While he isn't looking at her- she could almost pretend.

Almost.

She leans up, going on her toes so she can reach his mouth more easily, but when she's at the right level she pauses first.

"I… I know you don't want to hear this right now," she whispers, and Arum inhales sharply as her breath tickles his scales, "but I think- I feel like… maybe I should."

"What…" he keeps his eyes closed, his shoulders stiff. "Go on. Say what needs said and just-"

"I love you," she murmurs, and the shocked noise he makes is too much to stand, so she closes her own eyes as she lifts herself the last little bit to kiss him.

It feels exactly like a first kiss, which Rilla decides she should have expected. He feels stiff against her, he doesn't even raise his hands to hold her, he just- stands and gasps against her lips and allows her to hold his face with as much gentleness as she can muster.

His chest rumbles as her thumbs brush across his cheeks, as her mouth moves against him. She can tell that he's just as breathless as she is, and she feels burning and wild as she thinks, _ told you that you purr, you big liar_.

Her eyes flutter open as she slowly pulls away. She exhales, one long sigh, and then she looks up into Arum's eyes.

Her heart stumbles, and then it sinks.

Arum's violet eyes are wide, and stunned, and _ wanting_-

And still without a flicker of memory.

She tries to hide her- her disappointment, tries to hide the way her entire body feels suddenly cold and distant, but when she closes her eyes again she can hear the small noise the monster makes in response, and after a moment, two of his hands reach awkwardly to grip her own.

"I… Rilla…"

"Don't- don't call me that," she manages, and her voice sounds strange in her own ears. It's almost worse, hearing him try to say the wrong name so damn _ gently _ instead of just hissing at her. "You _ never _ call me that."

"I'm… I'm s-" he pauses, and she can feel his hands flexing uncomfortably against her own. "I do not know what to say. I thought- for a moment, I almost believed that perhaps-"

"Knew it was a ridiculous long shot. You said so yourself," she says, before he can finish the thought, and his hands drop away from her. She wants to grab his wrists and pull his arms around her, wants to run until her legs give out, wants to shove him and scream in his face, wants to kiss him again and again and again until she snaps this curse in half-

She opens her eyes, and turns away from Arum's confused, yearning face, back to the pile of books. She pulls one towards her, peeling it open with fingers that feel wooden and strange, and she forces herself to focus on the words in front of her.

"We'll keep trying," she says, and after a moment she sees him nod out of the corner of her eye.

They'll keep trying. Rilla will keep _ working_. Until they fix this, until they get him _ back- _

There's nothing else she can do.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No solutions yet, but it's the dead of night, they are exhausted, and at least one of them is attempting to be responsible with their health right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one feels pretty heavy. Is it weird for me to admit that I cried a few different times writing this? Anyway. Take care of yourselves, I love you.

Damien swims back to awareness with a rustle of paper and a deep, familiar sigh.

He blinks, stretching his arms above his head with a gasp, and when he sees glossy scales through his bleary blinking he nearly reaches without a second thought-

Nearly. He remembers in time enough to make the motion look only as if it is part of the stretch.

Arum stares at him from a nearby seat, setting aside the books he is holding.

"Kind of you to rejoin us, little knight," he murmurs, his tone blank.

He looks- exhausted, Damien realizes. When he glances to Rilla she doesn't look up from her own reading, though she does quirk her lips into a strained smile, acknowledging him despite her focus. She looks just as harried as the monster, if not more so, a concerning tension in every muscle of her frame.

"How long was I… how late is it?" he asks quietly, and Arum squints for a moment before the Keep gives a gentle answer and the monster frowns more deeply. "Far _ too _ late, I think," Damien continues, his suspicions confirmed more by Arum's expression than his dubious understanding of the Keep.

"We've hit a few- a few walls," Rilla says, and her voice is muted and clipped as she lifts a hand to rub at one of her eyes, "but we've been making progress. Got a few hypotheses to test out."

"Bed," Damien says, his voice inarguable. "It's long past time you rested. Your hypotheses will keep until tomorrow, unlike the pair of you."

Rilla sets her jaw for only half a second before her shoulders slump and she nods absently. She sighs, closing the book in front of her. She stands and when Damien steps up beside her she reaches for his hand, and then she glances towards their monster.

"I don't expect we'll be sharing a room tonight," she says, an unexpected brittleness beneath the words, and when Arum blinks Rilla continues quickly. "The Keep should still have my old room tucked away somewhere, anyway. We've done enough tonight that I think we'll be able to make progress with fresh minds in the morning."

"You wish for us to stop working _ now_? We have _ theories_, we could attempt to implement any number of-"

"The _ last _ time you ran yourself too ragged you nearly killed yourself _ and _ the Keep," Rilla snaps, squeezing Damien's hand almost too hard. "And I don't know about _ you_, Arum, but me? I know for a fact that we're not going to stumble into the right answer on the first try, and I'm way too exhausted to handle another failure right now. If you wanna keep working until you hurt yourself, I can't _ stop _ you, but if you want to keep working on this together then you're gonna have to just listen to us and we'll test more theories in the _ morning_."

“But- I-” Arum's jaw clenches, teeth bared, but he looks away from them and after a long moment he sighs, nodding a concession. "Very well. Keep, do you know the room she is referring to?"

The Keep sings a soft reply, pulling out a door, and Rilla's hand tightens on Damien's again, her lips pressing tight together.

"In the morning, then," Arum says, quiet and stilted, and then he gives a very slight bow. "Rest well, humans."

He stares at them for another moment, and then he turns, and the Keep presents him another doorway.

Arum slips through, and then he disappears into the bedroom that should belong to the three of them together.

  
  


* * *

  
  


When the Keep closes the portal behind them, Rilla and Damien don't go to bed immediately. They stand just inside the room and Damien holds his arms open and Rilla sags and flings her arms around him and they just- hold each other, clinging tight for a long time. Feels like minutes, possibly into the double digits, but Rilla's brain is going a little hot and fuzzy at the edges so she can't really trust that her sense of time is working just now. Doesn't matter anyway.

Eventually Damien sighs and loosens his grip, leaning back enough to reach up and brush away the hair that's come loose from her braid, his knuckles soft against her temple, and while his hand is in range she tilts her head to kiss his wrist. He breathes a laugh, his smile going so warm and delighted, and Rilla loves him so fucking _ fiercely_, loves that he can find wonder and joy even at the end of a day like this- loves that he can find it in _ her_, even when she feels-

Even when she feels like well-crumpled trash, honestly.

They undress without speaking, and when they crawl into bed Damien tangles their legs together, tangles their hands together between them, ducking his forehead close against hers and humming lightly as he closes his eyes.

"I feel I should apologize," he says gently, his thumb stroking slowly up and down the back of her hand. "I did not mean to sleep, to leave you to contend with this situation alone yet again-"

"It's fine, Damien." She shakes her head, sighing. "It's probably better that you got some rest. And- and I think he feels less threatened when he only has to deal with one of us at a time, anyway."

"Hm," Damien says, a frown tugging at his lip. "Still. I am glad, at least, that you've come upon some ideas, even if none managed to break the spell quite yet."

Rilla swallows roughly, thinking of how stiff and uncertain Arum's hands felt when they took her own, after their failed kiss. "It's not gonna be an easy spell to break, I don't think," she manages in a whisper, and Damien sighs.

"Perhaps not. But… I believe in you," he says, his forehead pressing against her own, his hands interlocking with her own. "I believe in _ us_, my love. My fear is so very small a thing, when measured beside my love for the both of you, my faith in your brilliance. I believe in you, my Rilla."

Rilla-

It's like glass breaking. The moment the first crack shows, the integrity of the entire facade fails. Shatters. She covers her face with both hands, pressing back against the tears that come as her breath cuts off in ragged little gasps. Damien makes a small surprised noise before he curls his arms around her, gathering her against his chest.

"Oh, oh my flower, oh-"

"I don't know what I'm _ doing_," she chokes as Damien lightly kisses her hair, the pads of his fingers rubbing small soothing circles into her back. "I don't- I don't know if we- what if he _ never _ remembers, Damien? What if he's just- _ gone_? We barely even know wh-what _ happened_, not for _ sure_, and if we don't know what the curse _ is, _ how can we fix- how can we-"

"Rilla, oh love-"

"Even if we _ convinced _ him of the truth it doesn't give him back- it doesn't give _ any _ of us back the time we lost! He doesn't remember _ meeting _ us, he doesn't remember- we convinced him that we aren't _ lying _ but what does that m-_matter _ if he doesn't-"

"Breathe," Damien says, and Rilla _ tries _ but every time she tries to slow down her breathing her throat catches sharp and she ends up gasping and choking instead. It _ hurts_, her throat, her eyes, her lungs, and she doesn't know how to make it _stop_.

"_Maybe _ he falls in love with us again but he doesn't- he didn't- is he even the _ same _ Arum that we loved before, then? Is it still _ him_, or- or is this some _ new _ Arum and the monster we fell in love with is just- _gone_? All those little bits of time, all- all the talks and- and the moments of realization and- and- he doesn't know, he _can't_ know how-"

Damien makes a gentle hushing noise, his palms still pressing sturdy into her shoulders beneath the sheets, and she clings to him, curling tight. "We don't know that this is permanent, love. We just don't _know_. I'm frightened too, but- we cannot give in to despair."

"I thought- I thought if we could remind h-him maybe it would trigger- maybe it would pull something back _out_ but- but nothing is _working_ and he doesn't have the first _hint_ of a memory and I feel so-"

"Rilla-"

"Useless! I'm just _useless_ and the way he looks at us makes me want to _scream_ and I just want him _ back_. I want him back and I don't know _how._ I should- I should know! I should be able to fix this, I just-"

"It's _ alright_, Rilla, it's-"

"It's _ not_, Damien, it's not alright and I don't know h-how to _ make _ it alright again and I-"

"It's alright to _ feel _ this way," he insists, and his arms around her squeeze. "You need not always hold yourself so stiffly, my love. It is unfair to expect yourself never to crack. You are allowed to feel this. You are hurting just as I am, scared as I am, and you should not try to bury those feelings for my sake and for his-"

"I- Damien I should- I should be able to _ fix _ this, it's my _ job _ to know how to fix- why can't I- why can't- Damien I _ hate _ not knowing what to do-"

"I know," he murmurs, holding her close and pressing a kiss to her hair. "I know, love. But that does not mean that you are _ useless, _ Rilla."

"I _ feel _ useless. I feel _ stupid_, Damien, I'm so fucking _ desperate _ that I let myself believe that some fairy tale _ magic _ was going to work and all it did was make me feel like- like I was kissing the _ wrong monster _ and- and like I was betraying- betraying Arum, _ our _ Arum-"

"A kiss," Damien murmurs, and Rilla wants to _ scream _ for the note of sadness in his voice. He's smart enough- of course he knows _ exactly _ what that kiss would be meant to do, and clearly it didn't _ work_. He squeezes her again, sighing into her hair. "I am so, so sorry, my love."

"Sorry for _ what_, Damien? That I let myself fall for some magic potion _ bullshit _ when I should have been focusing on _ real _ solutions? That I can't shake the feeling that maybe I just wanted to kiss him one last time in case we _ never _ fix this-" her throat tightens, her breath shuddering as her tone wobbles out of her own control, "and what if _ that's _ why it didn't work? I didn't do it right, didn't say the right things, didn't- or- or if it's a _ true _ love thing, what if I'm just not- not-"

"Oh, Rilla-"

"Not _ enough_, or- or maybe it would only work if we were both _ monsters_, or-"

"Speculation without data is unhelpful at best," Damien says dutifully, and Rilla gusts a breath against his shoulder, _almost_ a laugh, surprised to hear her own words echoed back to her. "We simply do not _know_, and you are only hurting your own heart by saying and thinking such things. You _hoped_, and that hope did not bear out. You cannot judge yourself lacking for this. You cannot judge yourself useless or - Saints forbid - _stupid_. Nothing in the world could possibly be further from the truth. Certainly you know that, deep down."

Rilla sags in his arms, her nose pressing against the side of his neck, her cheeks wet enough that she knows she must be crying on him too. "I'm just- it's only been a day and I'm already- I don't know how to do this, Damien. I don't-"

"Is all this- _ noise _ really necessary?"

Rilla jolts, inhaling sharply, but hearing Arum still sounding so distant and uncomfortable makes the ache in her chest even _ worse _, makes the uncontrolled hitching of her breath even harder to push down, and she buries her face against Damien's collarbone, trying to stifle as much of it as she can.

"We did not mean to wake you," Damien says quietly, and Rilla shakes in his arms, clenching her jaw tight and squeezing her eyes closed to try to control the tears.

"I was not sleeping," Arum grumbles, unmoving in the threshold of his summoned portal , his claws curling awkwardly against the vines. "Cannot seem to…" he shakes his head. "You are not- _ injured_, correct?"

"No," Damien says, stroking Rilla's hair as she presses against him and tries to breathe more normally. "No, Lord Arum. It has simply been… emotionally taxing, for the both of us."

"I… suppose… I suppose that is to be… expected," he mutters, looking away, and then his eyes flick back towards them again, the uncertainty on his face so clear that he may as well be screaming it. "I… are you…" he pauses, then looks away again with his claws flexing awkwardly. "Are you having difficulty finding sleep, then?"

Rilla clenches her teeth tighter, hisses between them at the stupidity of the question because of _ course_-

"Unfortunately, yes, Lord Arum," Damien says, far more gently, one of his hands still drawing through her hair, and she presses her forehead against his shoulder harder. "And you as well?"

"I-" Arum snaps his teeth together, sighs, and looks down at the ground. "Cannot seem to… it is too _ cold_, tonight, I think," he mutters. He pauses in the doorway, one hand clutched on the frame, clearly tense, his tongue flicking anxiously before he continues. "We-" he pauses again, barely managing the entire word before he has to look away again. "You implied- S- Damien. You implied that we- we _ rest_, together?"

"Most nights, when we can," Damien says, his tone very carefully neutral though Rilla can feel the way he deflates at the question, the slight edge of despair in his words. "Yes."

"So the pair of you would be… accustomed to my presence in your bed," he says slowly.

"Our presence in _ your _ bed, when we are here," Damien amends, but Rilla tenses further, pulling herself out of Damien's arms so she can sit upright, swiping a hand quickly over her face to diffuse the tears before she levels a glare at the monster in the doorway.

"You wanna interrogate this _ now_?" she asks in a sour, biting voice. "We slept with _ our _ Arum. You don't even know who we _ are_. You don’t love us and we all know it, so why don't you just let us wallow in _ peace_? I'll try to cry a little _ quieter _ so we don't disturb your beauty sleep next time-"

"Rilla," Damien says, chastising and gentle, and Rilla shakes her head. Arum doesn't move, doesn't respond to her furious words except to duck his head very, very slightly. "We are all exhausted, all frustrated, all well beyond our depths. And..." he sits up to match her, lifting a hand to tilt her face towards him as she stubbornly closes her eyes again. "My love, I do not believe that your anger is truly directed at _ him_."

Damien's hands on her face are soft, steady, comforting. They _ always _ are, he always knows when she needs- he always knows how to-

If she had to do all this alone, _ deal _ with all of this on her own- Rilla doesn't know if she could. She doesn't know if she'd be able to make the anger and the fear small enough that she could work through them, if she didn't have Damien here, if she didn't have someone here who knew her _ so _ well, who knew how to hold her. If she didn't have someone to have her back.

_ We have each other_, she thinks, a little fury still biting at the edges. _ Arum? What does Arum have? _

Arum has the Keep, at least-

But Arum and the Keep have always been entirely on the same page. Each knows what the other is thinking, _ always_. Except _ now_, the Keep is a full year of knowledge away from its familiar, and Arum is-

Arum, even with the three of them here with him, is probably feeling more alone than he ever has in his life.

Rilla inhales, exhales a sigh, and when she opens her eyes she lifts a hand to grip Damien's for a moment before she meets Arum's eyes again.

"I'm- I'm sorry," she says, and the monster blinks. "This isn't your fault, obviously. I know- I know it isn't-" she clenches her teeth for a moment, forcing herself to keep the damned tears in her eyes where they belong, and then she sighs. "I'm sorry."

Arum stares at her, unsure, and then he drops his gaze. "I was certainly cruel enough to the both of you in my own distress," he mutters. "If I called us _ even _ for such a mild bite, I would be overplaying your hand and underplaying my own. I-" he swallows, wincing, and Rilla knows- she _ knows _ the exact tone he's about to take when he- "I … apologize, as well. Both our angers were… misdirected, as Sir Damien implied. In the morning we shall aim our ire towards its _ proper _ recipient, I think."

Rilla bites back a laugh, if only because she's not really sure she'll be able to keep it from choking into sobs again.

"Yeah," she says, low and forced to evenness. "Yeah, that sounds like- like a plan."

Arum glances up at the both of them again, hesitant, and he stares for another long moment before his shoulders hunch and he half turns in the doorway. "I- I should… leave you be, then. I did not mean to distress you further."

She feels Damien's arms around her tremble, just for a moment, and then he says, "Of course. We- we shall see you in the morning, then, Lord Arum."

She knows what Damien wants, even if it'll sting. She wants the same exact thing. And Arum-

She'd rather have him here than send him off to sleep all alone, even if it hurts.

"Unless-" she cuts herself off, still feeling _ stupid_, but Arum hesitates in the doorway, and she thinks she can just barely catch a hint of- of _ relief _ in his eyes, behind the familiar wariness.

"Unless?" he echoes quietly, his face guarded now, his claws scratching lightly along the edge of the portal.

The thing is, Rilla knows him too well to ask if he _ wants _ to stay. When they first met, when they first started together- he'd never admit anything like that, even if it were _ obvious _ that he wanted something. _ Especially _ if it was obvious that he wanted something, in fact. So-

"Would it be- would it be too weird if we asked you to stay?" she tries, and Damien inhales sharply in surprise. "You- you said you're too cold. You may not _ remember_, but- but your _ body _ is used to- well, it's used to a bit more ambient nighttime heat than you remember right now, I think." She pauses, swallows. "Or- I mean, I'm sure the Keep could just- up the temperature in your bedroom or something, but-"

"I'll stay," he interrupts, too quick, and then he shakes his head. "It- I- it is far too strange, knowing you are sleeping under my roof without- without keeping an _ eye _ on you."

It's so obvious a lie that Rilla almost wants to laugh again. Instead she sniffles, lifting a hand to rub her eye, and then she tugs lightly at Damien's shoulder, laying the both of them back down. "Okay," she murmurs, because she can't think well enough right now to respond in any sort of clever way. She's _ exhausted_. "Good. That's- that's good."

They way they're laying, Damien has his back to the monster as he slinks hesitantly to the side of their bed. Arum can't see the way that Damien presses his eyes more tightly closed, the way he bites his lip a little too hard. Rilla can see, though, in the brief moment before the portal at Arum's back closes, dropping them back into fuller darkness.

She slips her arms around Damien, tugging him closer. "Scoot, Damien. Make room," she murmurs, and he glances up with a grateful half-smile. He tucks himself closer against her side, resting his cheek on her shoulder and pressing a quick light kiss to her neck before he sighs, closing his eyes again as the blankets shift.

Arum grips the edge of the sheet for a long moment before he rattles out a frustrated noise and slips beneath the covers with a grumble, keeping his body considerable deliberate inches away from their own. "I-" he pauses, lowers his voice even further into nearly a growl. "I cannot say if I will be _ able _ to rest with someone else in-" he stops himself again, and then he sighs, and Rilla can feel him settling. She wonders if it's more the warmth or the exhaustion dragging him down, just now, because it certainly isn't _ them_. "Well. It does not matter. It is not as if I was sleeping anyway," he mutters, and then she watches the dim reflection of the moonlight in Arum's predator eyeshine as he stares back at her in return.

She closes her eyes before the feeling in her chest gets too big to bury again, holding Damien in her arms and settling closer, grateful for her exhaustion if only because she's too tired to completely process how horrible it should feel to have Arum so close and so distant at the same time.

"Goodnight, my love," Damien whispers in her arms, and Rilla squeezes him tighter because she knows the waver he's hiding in the whisper, knows that he's not talking only to _ her_.

"Goodnight," she replies in the lightest gust of a breath, and from his place beside them, still not touching them, Arum says nothing at all.


End file.
